Tag: Galaxy S

Samsung announced the successor to the Galaxy S the Galaxy S II back in MWC 2011.

Back then, Sammy announced that the SGS II will sport a 1 GHz dual-core Exynos processor and an ARM Mali 400 GPU. However, reports are flying in that Samsung has bumped up the clock speed on the handset to 1.2 GHz.

This piece of news has even been confirmed by Samsung’s Eesti Facebook page. The reason behind the increase in this speed bump is unknown at the moment.

It may very well be possible that the performance of the Exynos chip was not up to the mark, thus forcing Samsung to increase the clock speed. Due to this speed bump, Samsung has pushed back the release date of the Galaxy S II until late-May or early June.

It is unknown whether this will affect the processor speed of the Tegra 2 variant of the Galaxy S II, which will sport a 1 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPUs.

Looks like Samsung is still not done with the most popular Android handset of last year the Galaxy S.

Samsung will soon launch the Galaxy S Plus which will sport the same specs as that of the original Galaxy S, with some subtle changes.

The Galaxy S Plus will be powered by a 1.4 GHz single core Snapdragon processor along with an Adreno 205 GPU and pack 512MB of RAM and 8GB of on-board storage. The Galaxy S Mini will pack the same 4-inch beautiful Super-AMOLED screen with WVGA (800×480) resolution, found on the original Galaxy S.

The back of the handset sports a 5MP camera with HD video recording. The usual Wi-Fi b/g/n, GPS with A-GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, microSD card slot and a 3.5mm audio port are also present. Unlike the Galaxy S, the S Plus will come with a 1650mAh battery and a metal back plate.

The handset will launch with the latest version of Android OS Gingerbread along with Samsung’s TouchWIZ UI 3.0 on top of it. The S Plus is expected to be announced in April for around $800.

The original Samsung Wave was a total VFM (Value-For-Money) phone. The handset shared the same internals as the Android powered Galaxy S, including the display albeit of a smaller size at 3.3-inches. The Wave was the first phone from Samsung to run its own home-made OS Bada.

Now, more than a year after its release the folks over at Bada-World have managed to get Android 2.2 (FroYo) up and running on the Bada powered Samsung Wave. The developers have managed to get Android 2.2 to boot on the Wave.

Most of the stuffs don’t work and the build is quite buggy. However, Wi-Fi and GSM antenna works pretty well. The overall performance is slow, but the build is very stable.

One major problem with this build is that if a user tries to launch any application on the phone, the phone will restart. Due to the reboot, some changes are made in the file system of the phone which leads to the CPU burning itself!

The developer also states that the Wave’s successor the Wave II has a higher probability of getting a stable Android 2.2 or Android 2.3 build than it.

Today, Samsung officially announced two new Galaxy devices powered by Android – the Galaxy Player 4 and 5. Both the devices run Android 2.2 Froyo but will receive an upgrade to Android 2.3 Gingerbread soon.

The Galaxy Player 4 and 5 were first spotted at the Mobile World Congress, but we didn’t have many details about them back then. But at today’s event, Samsung revealed everything about the Galaxy Player, expect for the pricing details.

The Galaxy Player 4 is very similar to the Galaxy S, expect that it won’t offer any calling functionality or 3G connectivity. It also has a lower resolution camera but has almost everything else. Both the players will have a 3.2 MP camera, and the Galaxy Player 5 comes with Flash as well. They offer Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and up to 32 GB microSD card support.

The Galaxy Player 4 comes with a 4 inch Super Clear LCD display, while the Galaxy Player 5 comes with a 5 inch TFT LCD display. Both are capable of playing 720p videos in almost very popular format, just like the Galaxy S. They also support the Android Market.

They will likely be launched in Spring, and should be priced in the range of $199 – $299, to compete with the iPod Touch.

The Samsung Galaxy S was one of the most popular Android handsets last year. In some aspects, it still is. The handset did have its fair share of controversy with a non-usable GPS and the Froyo update delay.

The back of the Galaxy S sports a 5MP camera with Auto-Focus and face detection. Earlier, the Auto-Focus used to work only while clicking pictures. However, recently Samsung released an app on the Samsung Apps’ store called the Camera Firmware Update.

The application updates the firmware of of the camera and enables continuous auto-focus while recording videos.

Below is a video shot from the Galaxy S which shows the auto-focus feature :

The picture and the video quality taken from the camera remains the same. Galaxy S owners can download the application from here. Users are warned not to uninstall this app once they update the camera firmware of their handset. The app works on rooted Galaxy S handsets, as well as one running on Custom ROMs.

It is nice to see Samsung still adding some handy features to the Galaxy S.

Samsung Galaxy S owners who frequently visit the Galaxy S sub-forum on XDA know that firmware leaks are a pretty common thing. Up until now, we have only had firmware leaks based on Android 2.2 or 2.2.1.

Today, an Android 2.3.2 Gingerbread based firmware for the Galaxy S has leaked on the Internet. Samsung proprietary TouchWIZ UI (v3.0) also runs on top of it. The new firmware (XWJV1) is not an official one and is an early beta firmware.

Galaxy S owners who flashed this firmware on their handset report that the browser is super smooth and super quick. Like in Android 2.2 based firmware, the browser rendering is hardware accelerated. Sadly, the awesome screen-off animation as seen on the Nexus S is not present in this firmware.

The firmware has already been rooted by the awesome developers at XDA. However, one major disappointment with this firmware is that it still uses the RFS file system. The RFS FS is the major culprit behind all the lags and stalling issues which majority of the Galaxy S owners face.

Users should keep in mind that since this is a beta firmware bugs and crashes are to be expected.

Rumors are floating around on the Internet that the Samsung Galaxy S will get Android 2.3 Gingerbread update sometime in March. The rumor of this source is this tweet from @m4gic. Apparently, the guy went to the Sammy’s European headquarter in Frankfurt where he got this piece of news.

Now, I know rumors spread like fire on the Internet but this is a bit too much. I own a Samsung Galaxy S and am a more than frequent visitor of the Galaxy S sub-forum over at XDA. Now, firmware leaks are a very common thing over the Galaxy S forum on XDA. In fact, the first Android 2.2 based firmware for the Galaxy S leaked nearly 8 weeks before the official’ firmware was released by Samsung.

If Samsung does intent to roll out the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update for the Galaxy S by March then at least one Gingerbread based firmware for the handset must have already leaked. Sadly, that is not the case here! Many people may argue that firmware leaks are no big deal and it may happen that a Gingerbread based firmware for the Galaxy S won’t leak.

However, I personally feel that Samsung does intentionally leak some of these firmwares so that it can get the feedback of the modding community about the firmware. Samsung has in fact incorporated some of the changes which the modding community suggested it!

So according to me, the Samsung Galaxy S won’t get the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update in March. If by any means it does, it will be either via CM7 (unofficial), which is progressing very nicely and can be easily used on day-to-day basis, or via a leaked Gingerbread firmware.

A couple of days ago, Samsung and Sprint started rolling out the Android 2.2 Froyo update for the Samsung Epic 4G. Today, AT&T has announced that they will be rolling out the Android 2.2 update for the Samsung Captivate handset from tomorrow!

However, the update won’t be an OTA (Over-The-Air) one. Users need to use their Windows based PC or a Mac to update their Captivate to FroYo.

As stated above by AT&T, the download link to Android 2.2 FroYo for the Captivate will be posted on their Facebook page tomorrow. Hopefully, the update will be a trouble free one and won’t end up bricking the handsets like the WP7 update did to Samsung phones. Including the Captivate, 3 out of 5 Galaxy S variants will taste Android 2.2 FroYo this year.

Hopefully, Samsung and Verizon will release the Android 2.2 update for the Fascinate by the end of this month or early next month.

As reported earlier by us, Samsung has started rolling out the Android 2.2 FroYo update for the Sprint branded Epic 4G. Originally, the FroYo update was supposed to come in an OTA form. However, Samsung went ahead and released an exe file that will help Epic owners update their handset to Android 2.2.

The EB13 software build version is available in an exe form for Windows users, which will allow them to easily update their handset to FroYo, irrespective of the current firmware the handset is running on. For Mac owners, Samsung has an update.zip’ file which will only work with the DI18 software build or above.

However, users should keep in mind that updating via the above method will wipe their handset clean of all their data including contacts and SMS. Thus, users are advised to make backups of their important data present on the phone before proceeding with the firmware update. Epic 4G owners can download the update from here.

The Android 2.2 update for the Epic 4G will include support for Flash 10.1, ability to install apps in the SD card, better memory management, improved battery life, a kernel update and some bug fixes.

Last year, I purchased my first Android phone the Samsung Galaxy S. Before the Galaxy S, I had no previous experience with the Android OS. However, after I got the Galaxy S, my love for the OS and its openness’ grew. Since the Galaxy S, I tried many other Android based devices including a HTC Legend, a HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy 5. Recently, I got the HTC Desire Z.

On my suggestion, many of my friends also purchased an Android based phone and they have been simply loving the OS. However, one complaint all my friends have is the poor battery life of their Android phone. In fact, the majority of Android owners complain about the poor battery life of their handset. Until late last year, the battery life of even my Galaxy S was very poor. If I used the phone heavily, it would be totally out of power by evening.

I tried many tips, found all over the Internet, but the increase in battery life was hardly noticeable. Then one day, I came across an application on the Android market called Juice Defender. The description of the app says that it will help Reclaim your battery’. Out of pure curiosity about the efficiency of these kind of apps, I installed Juice Defender on my phone. I ran the app on my phone and was surprised to see that the app checks if your phone is rooted or not. After that, I enabled the app and used the Aggressive’ profile.

Since then, the battery life of my Samsung Galaxy S has improved considerably! Before using Juice Defender, the battery of my phone would go down to 30% by night on moderate usage. My Moderate’ usage scenario includes an hour of phone calls, 30-40mins of fiddling around with the phone, around 30 messages and some tweeting via TweetDeck with Auto Sync enabled for my FB, GMail and Twitter account.

After installing the app, I can squeeze out nearly a full day and a half of battery life from my Galaxy S with the usage pattern defined above. Even under heavy usage, I can get a full day of battery life from my phone. I seriously never expected this app to have such a big impact on the battery life of my phone. I installed this app on the Android phones of all my friends and relatives. After a week of using the phone with the app running in the background, even they reported substantial improvements in the battery life.

When I shifted to the HTC Desire Z, I did not install Juice Defender for a couple of days. The battery life of the phone was pathetic. Even on light usage, the battery of the phone hardly lasted me a single day. However, after I installed Juice Defender, the scenario again changed. The battery life of my Z increased substantially.

For people who think that this app may slow down your phone or may disable some features of the phone, I am pleased to say that this is not the case. There is absolutely no performance hit or anything. Your Android phone will continue to function as it was.

For all Android phone owners with poor battery life, I will highly recommend you to try out Juice Defender on their phone. Users always have the option to uninstall the app if they don’t like it.